


Disgraceful Behaviour

by ChrisCalledMeSweetie



Series: A Sackful of Saki [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Edwardian Boarding School, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Schoolboy John, schoolboy sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 15:56:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20799218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChrisCalledMeSweetie/pseuds/ChrisCalledMeSweetie
Summary: Edwardian schoolboys Sherlock and John sneak into a forbidden laboratory.





	Disgraceful Behaviour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [221b_hound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/gifts), [AtlinMerrick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/gifts).

> An adaptation of Saki’s classic short story The Lumber Room.

The children of the boarding school were to be driven, as a special treat, to the seaside. Sherlock was not to be of the party; he was in disgrace. Only that morning he had refused to eat his wholesome porridge on the seemingly frivolous ground that there was a frog in it. Older and (in their own foolish minds) wiser and better people had told him that there could not possibly be a frog in his porridge and that he was not to talk nonsense; he continued, nevertheless, to talk what seemed the veriest nonsense, and described with much detail the coloration and markings of the alleged frog.

The dramatic part of the incident was that there really was a frog in Sherlock's basin of porridge; he had put it there himself, so he felt entitled to know something about it. The sin of taking a frog from the garden and putting it into a bowl of wholesome porridge was expounded on at great length, but the fact that stood out clearest in the whole affair, as it presented itself to the logic of Sherlock, was that the older and (in their own foolish minds) wiser and better people had been proven to be profoundly in error in matters about which they had expressed the utmost assurance.

"You said there couldn't possibly be a frog in my porridge; there_ was_ a frog in my porridge," he repeated, with the insistence of a skilled tactician who does not intend to shift from favourable ground.

Most of Sherlock’s peers (in age, if not in wit) had long ago determined not to involve themselves in his frequent disputes with the boarding school staff. John, however, was newly arrived; moreover, he had a keen sense of justice, and so had spoken up in favour of the validity of Sherlock’s argument. He was, therefore, also in disgrace.

So, the other pupils of the boarding school were to be taken to the seaside that very Saturday afternoon, and Sherlock and John were to stay behind. The headmaster had hastily invented the seaside expedition in order to impress on Sherlock the delights that he had justly forfeited by his disgraceful conduct at the breakfast-table, and that John had also forfeited by his unpardonable defence of the transgressor. It was his habit, whenever one of the children fell from grace, to improvise something of a festival nature from which the offender would be rigorously debarred; if all the children sinned collectively they were suddenly informed of a circus in a neighbouring town, a circus of unrivalled merit and uncounted elephants, to which, but for their depravity, they would have been taken that very day.

A few decent tears were looked for on the part of Sherlock and John when the moment for the departure of the expedition arrived. As a matter of fact, however, all the crying was done by Sebastian, who scraped his knee rather painfully against the step of the carriage as he was scrambling in. "How he did howl," said Sherlock cheerfully, as the party drove off without any of the elation of high spirits that should have characterised it.

“He'll soon get over that," said the headmaster. "It will be a glorious afternoon for racing about over those beautiful sands. How they will enjoy themselves!”

“Sebastian won't enjoy himself much, and he won't race much either," said Sherlock with a grim chuckle. "His boots are hurting him. They're too tight.”

"Why didn't he tell me they were hurting?" asked the headmaster with some asperity.

"He told you twice, but you weren't listening. You often don't listen when we tell you important things.”

“The two of you are not to go into the gooseberry garden," said the headmaster, changing the subject.

"Why not?" demanded Sherlock.

"Because you are in disgrace," said the headmaster loftily.

Sherlock did not admit the flawlessness of this reasoning. He felt perfectly capable of being in disgrace and in a gooseberry garden at the same moment. His face took on an expression of considerable obstinacy.

It was clear to the headmaster that Sherlock was determined to get into the gooseberry garden, "simply," as he remarked to himself, "because I have told him he is not to.” He only hoped Sherlock would not lead the new boy into temptation.

Now the gooseberry garden had two doors by which it might be entered, and once a small person like Sherlock or John should slip in there he could effectually disappear from view amid the masking growth of artichokes, raspberry canes, and fruit bushes. The headmaster had many other things to do that afternoon, but he spent an hour or two in trivial gardening operations among flower beds and shrubberies, whence he could watch the two doors that led to the forbidden paradise. He was a man of few ideas, with immense powers of concentration.

Sherlock — with John in tow — made one or two sorties into the front garden, wriggling his way with obvious stealth of purpose towards one or other of the doors, but never able for a moment to evade the headmaster's watchful eye. As a matter of fact, he had no intention of trying to get into the gooseberry garden, but it was extremely convenient for him that the headmaster should believe that he had; it was a belief that would keep him on self-imposed sentry-duty for the greater part of the afternoon.

Having thoroughly confirmed and fortified the headmaster’s suspicions, Sherlock slipped back into the house and rapidly put into execution a plan of action that had long germinated in his brain. During all his long months of confinement at the boarding school, Sherlock had had one goal in mind — to gain access to the laboratory. He had always imagined that he would make the attempt on his own, but now, against all odds, he seemed to have acquired an ally. He therefore enlisted John as his accomplice.

The two made their way stealthily inside. By standing on a chair in the library one could reach a shelf on which reposed a fat, important-looking key. The key was as important as it looked; it was the instrument which kept the mysteries of the laboratory secure from unauthorised intrusion, and opened a way only for headmasters and such-like privileged persons. With John standing look-out at the library door, Sherlock availed himself of this key.

Flushed with triumph, Sherlock and John crept soundlessly through the corridors until they came to the forbidden door. The key turned stiffly in the lock, but it turned. The door opened, and the two boys were in an unknown land, compared with which the gooseberry garden was a stale delight, a mere material pleasure.

Often and often Sherlock had pictured to himself what the laboratory might be like, that region that was so carefully sealed from youthful eyes and concerning which no questions were ever answered. It surpassed even his expectations as a storehouse of unimagined treasures. Somewhat familiar items — a funnel, a balance scale with lead weights, a mortar and pestle — shared the space with such thrilling rarities as Bunsen burners, a microscope, and a wooden chest filled with jars of chemicals.

As Sherlock was admiring the contents of the chest, the voice of the headmaster in vexed vociferation of his name came from the gooseberry garden without. He had grown suspicious at Sherlock’s long disappearance, and had leapt to the conclusion that he had climbed over the wall behind the sheltering screen of the lilac bushes: he was now engaged in an energetic and rather hopeless search for the rascal among the artichokes and raspberry canes.  
  
"Sherlock, Sherlock!" he shouted. "You are to come out at once. It's no use trying to hide there; I can see you all the time.”

It was probably the first time in twenty years that anyone had smiled in that laboratory. Sherlock smiled at John, and John — wonder of wonders — smiled broadly back.

Safe in the knowledge that the headmaster would not come looking for them in the laboratory, as he was convinced they had snuck into the gooseberry garden, the two boys explored the marvels around them. Presently the angry repetitions of Sherlock's name gave way to a shriek, and a cry for somebody to come quickly.

Sherlock reluctantly shut the chest of chemicals. Then he and John crept from the room, locked the door, and replaced the key exactly where they had found it. The headmaster was still shouting for help when they sauntered into the front garden.

"Who's calling?" Sherlock asked.

“I am," came the answer from the other side of the wall. "Didn't you hear me? I've been looking for you in the gooseberry garden, and I've slipped into the rain-water tank. Luckily there's no water in it, but the sides are slippery and I can't get out. Fetch the little ladder from under the cherry tree—"

"I was told I wasn't to go into the gooseberry garden," said Sherlock promptly.

"I told you not to, and now I tell you that you may," came the voice from the rain-water tank, rather impatiently.

"Your voice doesn't sound like the headmaster's," objected Sherlock. "You may be the Evil One tempting me to be disobedient. The headmaster often tells me that the Evil One tempts me and that I always yield. This time I'm not going to yield.”

"Don't talk nonsense," said the prisoner in the tank. "Go and fetch the ladder.”

"Will there be strawberry jam for tea?" asked Sherlock innocently.

"Certainly there will be," said the headmaster, privately resolving that Sherlock should have none of it.

"Now I know that you are the Evil One and not the headmaster," shouted Sherlock gleefully. "When I asked the headmaster for strawberry jam yesterday he said there wasn't any. I know there are four jars of it in the store cupboard, because I looked, and of course you know it's there, with your all-seeing evil eyes, but he doesn't, because he said there wasn't any. Oh, Devil, you have sold yourself out!”

Giving up on Sherlock, the headmaster called, “John, are you there? Go and fetch the ladder.”

“Oh, no,” replied John, trying not to let his grin show in his voice. “The headmaster told me I wasn’t allowed in the gooseberry garden. I won’t let the Devil tempt me into wickedness!”

There was an unusual sense of luxury in being able to talk to the headmaster as though one was talking to the Evil One, but Sherlock knew, with childish discernment, that such luxuries were not to be over-indulged in. He grabbed John’s hand and led him noisily away before the two of them burst into utterly disgraceful giggles.

It was a kitchenmaid, in search of parsley, who eventually rescued the headmaster from the rain-water tank.

Tea that evening was partaken of in a fearsome silence. The tide had been at its highest when the children had arrived at the seaside, so there had been no sands to play on — a circumstance that the headmaster had overlooked in the haste of organising his punitive expedition. The tightness of Sebastian's boots had had a disastrous effect on his temper the whole of the afternoon, and altogether the children could not have been said to have enjoyed themselves. The headmaster maintained the frozen muteness of one who has suffered undignified and unmerited detention in a rain-water tank for thirty-five minutes.

As for Sherlock, he, too, was silent, in the absorption of one who has much to think about. It was just possible, he considered, that he might not mind being consigned to this boarding school after all, now that he had a friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Kind comments and kudos make me smile. 😊


End file.
